In the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (“USDA's”) Food Stamp Program (the “FSP”) provides the nation's cornerstone federal food assistance program for low-income Americans. In addition, the USDA also manages the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infant and Children (“WIC”), which is a program that addresses the special needs of at-risk, low-income pregnant, breast-feeding and postpartum women, infants and children by providing them with “prescribed” supplemental food packages targeted to the dietary needs of the individual participants. The USDA's FSP and WIC programs historically have operated by the delivery of paper-based food stamp coupons or WIC vouchers to program participants who used these documents to purchase eligible and prescribed food items at participating retailers.
Currently, both the Food Stamp and WIC programs are migrating toward Electronic Benefit Transfer (“EBT”) cards, in which program benefits electronically are delivered to program participants at the point-of-sale (POS) in retailer locations. These EBT cards are currently issued on debit and “smart card” payment distribution and processing platforms that are managed by third party bank clearinghouses. In the EBT environment, the retailer can rely upon the customer's “swiping” of his/her EBT card through a magnetic or “smart” card reader and input of an associated personal identification number (“PIN”) on an attached keypad to ensure authenticity of the program beneficiary and availability of sufficient funds to pay for the instant transaction. EBT-based transactions enable both retailers and the U.S. government to reduce fraudulent redemption of paper-based benefits.
With the WIC-EBT smart card, a ‘prescription’ is contained for each individual that defines the types of products and the benefit quantity that is allowed for each of the products. The WIC participant can only get the benefits by scheduling an appointment and then reviewing the specific situation to determine the tailored ‘prescription’ that will meet the nutritional needs of the individual. When the benefits run out, the participant is required to schedule another appointment to have additional benefits (i.e., a new ‘prescription’) added to the smart card. Scheduling and knowing when there is a need to schedule an appointment can be problematic. It may not always be obvious to the WIC participant that there is a need to make another appointment for more benefits, which can result in a significant problem during the next shopping trip. Further, even if reminders may be given, the participant still needs to schedule the appointment to receive the additional benefits.
Accordingly, a need exists for a more efficient and effective manner of ensuring maintenance of individual government benefits in a retail environment, including appointment scheduling during a shopping session. The present invention addresses such a need.